


floors

by RosieClark



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Wage Gap, futuristic AU, some drug usage
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2020-08-14 00:13:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20183035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosieClark/pseuds/RosieClark
Summary: Welcome to Manhattan, 2119, a place where the rich live up high and the poor live below.Katie Holt’s new job takes her to one of the highest floors, and Lance Mcclain. She tells herself she needs the job for the money, but was that really all? Getting involved with a highlier could only lead to bad things, but the heart wants what the heart wants.Lance Mcclain was just starting to heal from the tragic death of his parents. His life is all anyone could hope for, living near the top of the Castle and seeing Allura Altea herself, the woman who lived at the very top. But who was this Katie Holt? And why did he feel like this around her?





	1. Lance Mcclain? Why the heck is he calling me?

**Author's Note:**

> Here you go, another plance fic. Will I ever stop? Probably not for a while. Enjoy!

Katie Holt stood at the door to her apartment, struggling to wave her ID ring over the scanner while balancing a bag of groceries in one arm and a half-full energy drink in the other. Of course, she thought as the kicked shamelessly at the door, this wouldn’t be a problem if they had a retinal scanner, or those glitzy computerized lenses that the highlier kids all wore. But no one could afford anything like that where Katie lived, all the way down at the 32nd floor.

Just as she was drawing back her leg to kick again, the door opened. “Finally,” Katie muttered, shoving past her 25 year-old brother. 

“If you got your ID ring fixed like I keep telling you, this wouldn’t happen,’ Matt quipped. “Then again, what would you say? ‘Sorry officers, I keep using my ID ring to open beer bottles, and now it’s stopped working’?”

Katie ignored him. Taking a long sip of her energy drink, she heaved the grocery bag onto the counter and tossed her brother a box of veggie-rice. “Can you put this stuff away? I’m running late.” The Lifty―Intra Floor Transit System―was down again, so she’d been forced to walk all twenty blocks from the lift shop to their apartment. 

Matt looked up. “You’re going out  _ tonight _ ?” He looked like dad, square jaw and cheekbones while she’d inherited their moms softer Italian featured, her full eyelashes and delicate nose. But they’d both somehow gotten their moms bright amber eyes, which glowed against their skin behind their glasses. 

“Um, yeah. It’s Saturday,” Katie answered, purposefully ignoring her brothers meaning. She didn’t want to talk about what had happened on this day ten years ago―the day their parents died and their entire world fell apart. She would never forget how Child Services came to their house that very night, while she was still clutching onto Matt, both of them still crying, to tell them about the foster system. 

Katie had listened to them for a while, Matt staring straight ahead, his eyes void of their usual spark. She was smart, really smart, good enough to have a serious shot at a college scholarship. But Matt had known enough about foster care to know what it would do to them. 

He would have done anything to keep their family together, no matter what it cost him. 

The very next day, he had gone out to the nearest family court and declared legal adulthood, so he could start working his awful job at the monorail stop full-time. What other choice had he had? Even now, with Katie working too, they were barely keeping up―they had just gotten yet another warning notice from their landlord; they were always at least a month behind on rent. Not to mention all their mom's hospital bills. The siblings had been trying to pay those down for the last ten years, but at this interest rate the mountain of debt was actually starting to  _ grow.  _ Sometimes Katie felt like they’d never be free of it. 

This was their life now, and it wasn’t changing anytime soon. 

“Katie. Please?” 

“I’m already late,” Katie said, retreating into her roped-off section of their tiny bedroom; thinking about what she would wear, about the fact that she didn’t have to go to work for a whole thirty-six hours, about anything but the reproachful look in her brother’s amber eyes, which looked so painfully like their moms. 

*

Katie and her boyfriend, James, clattered down the steps of the Castel’s Exit 12. “There they are,” Katie muttered, raising a hand against the glare of the sun. Their friends were gathered at the usual meeting place, a hot metal bench across the street at 127th and Morningside. 

She glanced at James. “Are you sure you don’t have  _ anything  _ with you?” she asked again. She wasn’t exactly thrilled about the fact that James had started selling―at first just to their friends, then on an even bigger level―but it had been a long week, and she was still on edge after her conversation with Matt. She could really use a hit, of relaxants of hallici-lighter, anything to silence the thoughts that were cycling endlessly through her brain. 

James shook his head. “Sorry. Cleared out my whole inventory this week.” He glanced at her. “Everything okay?” 

Katie was quiet. James reached for her hand, and she let him take it. His palms were rough with work, and there were black circles of grease underneath his fingernails. James had dropped out of school to work as a liftie, repairing the Castles massive elevators from the inside. He spent his days suspended hundreds of meters in the air like a human spider. 

“Katie!” her best friend Hunk exclaimed, rushing over. His hair was pulled back my his trademark bandanna. “You made it! I was worried you weren’t going to come!”

“Sorry, got caught up.” Katie apologized. 

Kinkade snorted. “Had to get a little  _ transmission  _ in before the concert?” He made a crude gesture with his hands. 

Hunk rolled his eyes and pulled Katie into a hug. “How are you holding up?” she murmured. 

“Fine.” Katie didn’t know what else to say. She felt a confused pang of gratefulness that Hunk had remembered what day it was, mingled with irritation at the reminder. She caught herself toying with her mom’s old necklace and quickly let go of it. Hadn't she come out precisely to  _ avoid _ thinking about her parents?

Shaking her head, Kaite let her gaze roam over the rest of the group. Kinkade was leaning back on the bench, stubbornly wearing a leather jacket despite the heat. James stood next to him, his hair was somehow swept up and falling into his eyes at the same time. But with him it worked. 

“Where’s Haxus?” Katie asked. 

“Providing the fun. Unless  _ you  _ were planning on bringing today?” Kinkade said sarcastically. 

“Just partaking, thanks.” Katie replied, rolling her eyes. 

She had done plenty of illegal drugs, of course―they all did―but she drew the line at buying or selling. No one cared much about a few smoking young adults, but the laws were harsher on dealers. If she ended up in jail, Matt would lose his mind. Katie couldn’t risk that. 

Kinkade glanced up from his tablet. “Haxus’s meeting us there. Let’s go.”

A blistering wind tossed a few stray pieces of trash along the sidewalk. Katie stepped over them, taking a deep, bracing breath. The air out here might be hot, but at least it wasn’t the recycled oxygen-heavy air of the Castle. 

Across the street, James was already crouched at the side of the Castle, sliding a blade beneath the edge of a steel panel and peeling it back. “All clear,” he murmured. Their heads brushed as Katie stepped into the opening and they exchanged a look; then Katie was stepping into the steel forest. 

The sounds of outside instantly vanished, replaced by the low hum of voiced and drugged-out laughter, and the whoosh of air cycling from the bottom of the Castle. They were in the underworld beneath the first floor; a strange, dark space of pipes and steel columns. Katie and Hunk walked softly through the shadows, nodding at the other groups as they passed. One cluster was gathered around the dim pink glow of a halluci-lighter. Another, half clothed and sprawled out on a pile of pillows, was clearly about to start an Oxytose orgy. Katie was the telltale gleam of the machine room door ahead and started to walk a little faster. 

“You can go ahead and thank me now,” came a voice from the shadows, and she almost jumped.  _ Haxus.  _

He wasn’t as tall as Kinkade, but Haxus had to weigh at least twenty kilos more, and it was all muscle. His broad shoulders and arms were covered entirely in purple inktats, which danced across his body in a swirly chaos; shapes forming, breaking apart, and reforming elsewhere. Katie winced at the thought of inking that much skin. 

“Okay, guys.” Haxus reached into his bag and produced a stack of bright gold patched, each the size of Katie’s thumb nail. “Who’s in for communals?”

“Holy guacamole,” Hunk exclaimed laughing. “How did you score these?”

“Hell yes!” James high-fived Kinkade. 

“Seriously?” Katie asked, her voice cutting through the celebrations. She didn’t like communals. They induced a shared group high, which felt somehow invasive, like having sex with a bunch of strangers. The worst part was being unable to control the high, putting herself entirely in someone else's hands. “I thought we were smoking tonight,” she said, she'd even brought her halluci-lighter, the tiny compact pipe that could be used for anything, darklights, crispies, and of course the hallucinogenic weed it had been created for. 

“Scared, Holt?” Haxus challenged, after a moment. 

“I’m not  _ scared. _ ” Katie drew herself up to her full height―about five three―and stared at Haxus. “I just wanted to do something else.”

Her tablet vibrated with an incoming message. She looked down to see a text from Matt.  _ I made Mom’s garlic knots,  _ she’d written.  _ In case you want to come home.  _

Haxus was watching her, an open challenge in his gaze. “Whatever,” Kaite said under her breath. “Why the hell not?” She reached out to grab the patched in his hand and slapped one on her inner arm, right by the elbow where her vei was close to the surface. 

“That’s what I thought,” Haxus said as the others began eagerly reaching for the patched. 

They stepped into the machine room, and suddenly all Katie could hear was the electronic music. It slammed angrily into her skull, obliterating any other thought. Hunk grabbed her arm and began jumping hysterically, shouting something unintelligible. 

“Who’s ready to  _ party _ ?!” the DJ exclaimed from where he stood perched on a coolant tank, an amplifier spreading his voice throughout the room. The space, hot and close with cramped bodies, erupted in screams. “All right,” he went on. “If you’ve got a gold, put it on now. Because I’m DJ Lotor and I’m about to take you on the most insane ride of your life.” The dim light reflected off the sea of communal patched. Almost everyone here was patched up, Katie realized. This would be intense. 

“Three―” Lotor shouted, counting down. Hunk gave an eager laugh and jumped higher on his tiptoes, trying to see over the crowd. Katie glanced at Haxus; his inktats were swirling even wilder than usual in the space surrounding his patch, as if his very skin knew what was about to happen. 

“Two―” Most of the crowd had joined in the count. James came to stand behind Katie and wrapped his arms around her waist, resting his chin on her head. She leaned back into him and closed her eyes, bracing herself for the communals’ activation. 

“ _ One! _ ” The scream reverberated through the room. Lotor reached for the tablet hovering before him and flicked on the electromagnetic pulse, tuned to the frequency of the communals. Instantly all the patches in the room released waves of stimulants into the bloodstream of everyone wearing them. The ultimate synchronized high. 

The music turned up and Katie threw her hands into the air, joining the loud, seemingly endless scream. She could already feel the communal taking over her system. The world had realigned to the music, everything―the flashing of the lights overhead, her breathing, her heartbeat,  _ everyone’s  _ heartbeats―timed perfectly with the deep, insistent pulse of the base. 

_ Don’t you love this?  _ Hunk mouthed, or at least that's what it seemed like he said, though Katie couldn’t be sure. Already she was losing her grip on her thoughts. Matt and his last text message didn’t matter, her job and her asshole boss didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except this moment. She felt invincible, untouchable, l she would be this way forever: young and dancing and electric and alive. 

Lights. A flask of something strong being passed to her. She took a sip without tasting what it was. A touch on her hip― _ James,  _ she thought, pulling his hand closer in invitation. But then she saw James a few rows forward, jumping and punching at the sky with Kinkade. She spun around only to see Haxus’s face whirl up out of the darkness. He held up another gold patch, an eyebrow raised suggestively. Katie shook her head. She wasn’t even sure how she’d pay him back for the one she’d already taken. 

But Haxus was already peeling back the adhesive on the back side. “No charge,” he whispered, as if reading her thoughts, or had she spoken them aloud? He reached down to sweep her hair back from her neck. “A little secret: The closer it is to your brain, the faster it kicks in.” 

Katie closed her eyes, dazed as the second wave of drugs snapped though her. It was a razor-sharp rush, setting all her nerves afire. She was dancing and somehow also floating when she sensed a vibration in her front pocket. She ignored it and kept jumping, but there it was again, drawing her painstakingly back into her awkward, physical body. Fumbling, she managed to grab her tablet, wishing for not the first time that she had a pair of those expensive contacts all the highliers wore. Just a flick of the eyes and your call was being answered. With just a flick of your eyes, you could do basically anything. “Hello?” Katie said, gasping as her breathing became irregular, no longer in time with the music. 

“Katie Holt?” 

“What the―who is this?” She couldn’t hear. The crowd was still buffering her back and forth. 

There was a pause, as if the speaker couldn’t believe the question. “Lance Mcclain,” he said finally, and Katie blinked in shock. Her mom had worked as a maid for the Mcclains, back before she got sick. The Mcclains lived on the 985th floor. Dimly Katie realized that she did recognize the voice, from the few times she’d been up there. But why the hell was Lance Mcclain calling  _ her _ ? 

“So can you come work my party?” 

“I don’t… what are you talking about?” She tried to shout over the music but it came out more like a rasp. 

“I sent you a message. I’m throwing you a party tonight.” His voice was fast, impatient. “I need someone here―to keep everything clean, help with the caterers, all the stuff your mom used to do.” Katie flinched at the mention of her mom, but of course he couldn’t see. “My usual help bailed last minute, but then I remembered you and looked you up. Do you want the job or not?”

Katie wiped a bead of sweat from her brow. Who did Lance Mcclain think he was,  _ summoning _ her on a Saturday night? She opened her mouth to tell this rich, entitled asshole to shove the job right up his―

“I forgot,” he added, “it pays two hundred nanos.”

Katie choked back her words. Two hundred nanogac for just one night of dealing with drunk rich kids? “How seen do you need me there?” 

“Oh, half an hour ago.” 

“I’m on my way,” she said, the room still spinning. “But―”

“Great.” Lance ended the ping. 

With a tremendous effort, Katie pulled the patch from her arm, and then, wincing, ripped off the one on her neck. She glanced at the others―James was dancing, oblivious; Hunk was wrapped around some stranger with his tongue down her throat; Kinkade was just standing there. She turned to go. Haxus was still watching her, but Katie didn’t say good-bye. She just stepped out into the hot stickiness of the night, letting the used gold patches flutter slowly to the ground behind her.


	2. meet Lance, your everyday-illegal car driving-rich kid.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lets get to know Lance and some of his friends. At a party.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so because I have no self control, here's the next chapter. Enjoy!

“Incredible,” muttered Lance Mcclain, letting his and skin lightly over the hood of the convertible. The antique, driver-run care was black—so inscrutably black that in the shadowed half-light of the garage, it almost seemed purple. He glanced at Coran. “Where did you get say you found that last part again?” 

“Tokyo. Don’t worry my little man, I routed it through Sydney and then San Diego first,” Coran assured him, though Lance wasn’t really listening. He opened the car door and slid into the driver's seat, an eager nervousness prickling over his skin. Finally. Here he was, about to drive the convertible after six years of searching for those final parts. 

_ Like it Dad? _ He thought, as if his father were here now, leaning back in the passenger seat with a grin. 

Like always, the silent question remained unanswered. 

Driving the convertible had been his dad’s dream, not Lance’s. Before he died, Carlos Mcclain had collected these driver-run cars, and hired Coran to get them running again. Owning cars like this was definitely illegal, and as for driving them—to most people it would have been unthinkable. Far too dangerous, and crazy. 

Lance’s dad had driven them. A lot.

Not that Lance had known any of this the day his parents’ will was read. He still remembered walking into the lawyer’s office that afternoon: everything had felt cold and muffled and just a little bit distorted, like a dream. Or maybe that was just the Quints he’d been prescribed. 

He’d stood in the stuffy conference room, wearing that awful dark suit, surrounded by distant family members—Veronica was the only sibling who showed up other than him—while the executor divied up his parents’ estate in a clipped, businesslike tone. The whole time, Lance kept thinking that this couldn’t be happening, that his parents weren’t gone, not really. 

When the lawyer ratted off the Mcclains’ various vacation properties, Lance registered a moment of surprise at the “home in West Hampton, and all its contents,” bequeathed to him and Veronica. He hadn’t even  _ known  _ about a property in West Hampton. “We should sell that,” Veronica had muttered, and then they’d moved on to the London flat, and the moment was forgotten. 

Later, Lance would never understand why he’d gone out to the Hampton one January afternoon. Maybe on some level he’d known that it was more than just another line item in his parents’ will. Whatever the reason, he’d gone—and saw the garage.

“If you want to sell, I can line up some buyers,” Coran had explained as Lance glanced around the cars were lined up in neat, orderly rows. “It might take some time, but I’ll ask around, and—”

“No,” Lance said automatically. “I want to drive them.” 

Coran’s orange mustache had quirked up. “Are you sure? This isn’t your ordinary car. Driving is pretty illegal and you’re… how old are you, exactly?”

Lance had insisted. If his dad had done this, then he was determined to do it too. 

Now, two years later, he leaned forward to adjust the mirrors of the 2023 convertible. At a glance, Coran tossed him the keys. 

Lance’s gaze drifted to the fuel gauge, and he leaned frowned. “You only got a quarter tank?”

Coran reached down to manually lift the garage door. It wasn’t on loop with electricity in the rest of the house: too risky, in case anyone came looking. “My usual guy got arrested, and I haven’t found anyone now. At this point I might just learn to home-brew it myself,” Coran quipped, but Lance heard the distinct note of fear beneath the sarcasm. It was easy to forget how dangerous this was. 

“Just don’t burn down the garage,” he called out over the engine as he pulled into the residential street. 

Most houses were sleeping till next summer, but Lance saw lights on in a few of them—a family watching holo, a porch streaming with floodlights. He hummed toward the turnoff. The highway extended silently before him, a dark ribbon leading in one direction toward the ocean and in the other back toward the Castle. Lance paused only an instant before turning east and slamming the accelerator. 

The world seemed to fall silent, or maybe it was impossibly loud; everything blurred into a roar of adrenaline and rubber and metal, the wind whipping fast around the windshield of the car. The convertible felt like a living thing, responding to Lance’s thoughts almost before he knew them himself. The road curved slightly , and he barely even learned before the car was turning with him, smooth and certain. 

His eyes flicked to the speed, lit up in glowing yellow numbers on the dashboard. It was getting high. Still he pressed on the accelerator. He was going so fast that the wind brought tears to his eyes, or maybe they’d been there already. Lance wiped at them angrily. 

This was the very last car his dad had been trying to reconstruct before he died. 

Lance knew it was selfish, but he’d never talk Veronica about any of this. He’d meant to after the very first visit, except… Veronica never asked about the Hamptons house, never followed up to see what had happened to it. And after the reading of the will she just left town without warning. “I had to go,” she later explained to Lance. As if the loss was Veronica's burden alone, as if they weren’t both struggling under the impossible weight of it. 

The garage had acquired an almost sacred aspect in Lance’s mind. He  _ needed  _ to drive, now needed that numbing feeling of going so fast that everything else in the world shrunk down to nothing. It was better than any drug, which Lance could was with some authority, given that he’d tried most drugs at least once. 

What had his father been chasing when he went out driving like this? Or maybe the better question was, what had he been running from?

Lance had spent months trying to finish this convertible. He’d become convinced that if he could finally drive it—could do what his dad had intended to do but never got the chance—he might finally understand him. 

The road curved sharply up ahead. He braced himself, his grip tightening on the steering wheel, but it seemed to fight against him. Something was suddenly clawing at his throat, something butter and disappointed. 

He's been reaching so eagerly for a flicker of connection, for just a brief flash of insight about his father. But his dad wasn’t here. 

Belatedly Lance realized that his turn was wrong—he was swerving too far to the side, the wheels skidding angrily on the smooth, conductive pavement—

He pulled sharply on the wheel, trying to turn into the spin somehow, but it was too late—momentum had snared the car and thrown it violently out of control. The world outside was reduced to ribbons of variegated darkness. Lance braced himself for the impact, throwing his arms above his head. The edge of the old-fashioned seat belt sliced into his stomach. 

Then everything jolted to a sudden, loud, brutal stop. 

Lance opened his eyes and saw that the convertible had smashed into a tree. The entire right half of the car was gloriously shattered. The passenger door was folded in on itself, fragments of metal and glass scattered over the ground in gleaming shards. 

He fumbled for the door and released it, only to fall painfully to the ground with a yell. His palms were cut up with tiny shards of windshield. He looked down at them and realized they were shaking. 

_ I had an accident _ , he flicked to Coran, and dropped a pin for his location. 

_ What happened? Did anyone see? _ Coran replied. Lance didn’t answer. 

No one had seen because the road was empty. There was no one here but Lance. No matter how hard he tried—no matter how many cars he rebuilt, how fast he drove them—he wasn’t going to bring back his dad. Nothing he did would change the fact that he was still alone. 

He glanced at the clock in the corner of his vision and sighed. Fourteen whole minutes he’d lasted, with the car he’d spent months trying to build. Somehow he wasn’t shocked. He was always breaking things, wasn’t he?

He leaned his head back against the smashed car and closed his eyes. 

*

This was the first party Lance had hosted since his parents had died. It was everything he remembered and more, the lights strobing and the music blaring. He could control everything, of course—using his contacts, lenses in his eyes that acted like the retro cell phone—but he had forgotten how much he’d enjoyed the chaos. 

No one was sober enough to offer him condolences or sympathies so, for the first time in a long time, he felt like the old Lance. The Lance who had everything he could have wanted; a great apartment on the 985th floor, an amazing social circle consisting of Keith and Shiro, brothers from floor 965, Axca, a girl from floor 958, and to top it off, Allura Altea herself from floor 1000, and a perfect family. But now, he had lost that last bit. After his parents' death, his brothers vanished and Veronica, well, lets just say she got a little  _ intense _ . 

The higher you lived in the Castle, the better off you were. It was common knowledge, and Allura was at the top. She was a bombshell, with legs that went on for miles, smooth dark skin and a head of blazing white hair. Everything she did was so inhumanly beautiful, he often wondered if she was human at all. 

Lance was lounging in his gaming room, seated round the massive antique table with Keith and Shiro. They were all holding real paper playing cards in their hands. It was one of his weirder quirks, how he insisted on playing Idleness with his old card set. It was partly because he thought everyone looked too vacant, disconnected, when they played on their contacts. But that was just what he told his friends. The main reason was it was one of the small ways he would honor his parents love for antiques. 

He looked up and locked eyes with Allura. It didn’t take a genius to realize what she wanted. He knew he was good looking. Not like Shiro, all muscle and smiles, or like Keith, dark and brooding. But in a  _ Lance  _ was; his features a perfect mix of his mom’s Cuban sensuality and the classic Mcclain jaw and nose. Allura took a step forward and his blue eyes flashed appreciation at what she was wearing. 

“Hey there,” he said as she pulled up an empty chair. She earned her elbows so that the neckline of her top skimmed lower over her breasts, and studied him across the table. There was something shockingly intimate in his gaze. It felt like she could reach out and touch him with her eyes. 

Him and Allura had been best friends since before he could remember. They’d first met in grade school, hitting it off. She would let him copy off her homework, and he would protect her from unwanted attention. Two years ago, they had talked about dating, making something more out of what they had, and it was looking good. Then his parents died. 

And she had given him space to grieve. But now she was back, and their connection was stronger than ever. 

“Want to play?” Lance swept a pile of cards toward her. 

“I don’t know. I might go dance.” Lance knew Allura preferred the loud chaos of the party, and it was quiet in the game room.

“Come on, one hand. Right now, it’s just me against these two. And it wasn't been fun, playing against myself,” Lance quipped.

“Fine. But I’m with Keith.” She flashed him a dazzling smile. “And you know I always win.”

Sure enough, fifteen minutes later, the pile of chips in front of her and Keith had tripled in size. Allura stretched her arms overhead and pushed her chair back from the table. “I’m getting a drink,” she said meaningfully, staring at Lance. “Anyone want one?” 

“Why not?” Lance raised a brow. “I’ll come with you.” 

They stumbled into the coatroom, their bodies pressed closer together. “You look fantastic tonight,” Lance whispered. 

“No more talking.” Allura yanked his head down and kissed him, hard. She had always been one to assume control, that's for sure. 

Lance leaned forward in response, her mouth hot on his. He snaked his hands around her waist, playing with the hem of her shirt. Lance would feel her pulse quickened where his lips touched her neck. 

She pulled away and stepped back, leaving Lance to stumble forward. “What?” he gasped.

“I’m going to dance,” she said simply, reaching up to straighten her bra and smooth her white hair, her motions brisk, neat, practiced. This had always been her favorite part, reminding Lance that he wanted her. Making him just a little bit desperate. “See you later.”

He wiped the corner of his mouth as he watched her go, her hips swaying to the beat of the music. He had missed this, he realized. Missed hanging out, partying, missed  _ Allura.  _ But he was back. 

Lance Mcclain was back, and the world had better be ready. 

*

“No!” The image of Lance’s mom exclaimed, illuminated on the wooden wall in vibrant 3D. “Don’t you dare!”

Holographic four-year-old Lance clutched at the garden hose in the yard at his grandparents house in Cuba. “Oops,” he proclaimed without an ounce of contrition as he turned the hose on his mom. She laughed, her blue sundress drenched, her dark hair streaming with water down her back. 

Lance swirled the watery remains of his drink as he watched. He knew it was weird, and probably melancholy, to sit here with old family holos after a party. But he was moody and drunk, and no one else was here to see, and who was to say what he could or couldn’t do, anyway? He smiled a little as his dad began chasing a squealing Lance down the yard. God, even Veronica looked happy back then, her arms outstretched as she played some sort of VR flying game. 

Just as his dad scooped Lance into his arms, the door to the holoden swung inward. 

Lance looked up sharply, ready to let loose at whoever had broken the illusion—and paused. 

There was something familiar about the girl standing there, though Lance couldn’t exactly remember why. She was startlingly pretty, with delicate half-Italian features and bright gold eyes. He wondered what she was dressed as, with her messy ponytail and low-slung jeans and her green hoodie. 

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I just wanted to let you know that I’m finished. So I’m heading out.” 

Shit, Lance realized belatedly, she wasn’t wearing a costume at all. This girl was the maid. Mrs. Holt’s daughter. She had clearly inherited her mother's height, she barely came up to his chin. What was her name again? He nodded slowly. 

“I didn’t have time to go home and change. You didn’t give me much notice,” the girl added, her voice stiff, and her name came to him in one of those rare drunken flashes of brilliance. 

“Katie Holt,” he said slowly, almost conversationally. “How the hell are you?” For some surprising reason, he gestured to the chair next to him. 

For some other, equally surprising reason, Katie took it. 

“Aside from being groped by your friends, just great,” she snapped, tucking her legs up to cross them beneath her. “Sorry,” she added with an exhale. “It’s been a long night.”

“Well, most of them aren’t my friends.” Even though he’d forgotten about her existence until five minutes ago, Lance felt newly angry at the thought of people harassing Katie. God, he really  _ was  _ drunk and moody. 

Katie glanced around the holoden, taking in its dark carpeting and over sized armchairs, the massive bar along the back wall, currently covered with snack-pack wrappers. After their parents had died, Veronica had installed a bar in almost every room of the apartment.  _ Always have a drink within arm’s reach,  _ he’d joked. Lance had thought it was funny—but now, seeing it through Katie’s eyes, it seemed juvenile. He wondered why he even cared. 

Katie leaned back, her hoodie slipping up to reveal the pale ribbon of her midriff. Lance forced himself to look higher, to where she was playing with something on a chain around her neck. 

“What is that?” he asked. 

Katie seemed caught off guard. She quickly dropped the necklace. 

“Why the Eiffel Tower?” he asked, because it seemed like a safe enough question. 

Katie bit her lip. “It was an inside joke of outs. We used to say that if we ever had the money, we would take the train to Paris, eat at a fancy Cafe de Paris.”

“Did you ever end up going?” 

“I’ve barely left the Castle.” Katie spoke the words matter-of-factly, not looking for sympathy. Definitely her mother's daughter. 

Cries of laughter flooded the room as the holo lit back up. Lance quickly muttered a few commands and the room sank back into darkness. 

For a moment they both just stared at the empty screen. Lance didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t meant to share that footage with anyone; it was  _ private— _ but when he glanced over and saw Katie’s expression, his resentment faltered. 

“It’s nice that you have those vids. I wish we had more of my parents,” she said, breaking the silence. 

“I’m sorry,” Lance told her, though he’d always hated when people told him they were sorry; he knew the words were useless and ineffective. But sometimes he didn’t know what else to say. 

“It’s fine,” Katie told him.

Lance knew she was lying. He’d told the same lie plenty of times. It wasn’t fine, not at all. 

A sudden growl came from Katie’s stomach. Lance glanced at the time: 3:21am. “You hungry?” he said unnecessarily. “We could dig into the leftovers, if you want.” 

“Yes.” Katie practically jumped up from her seat, then followed him along the hallway and back down the enormous glass staircase. 

“Next time you should eat the catering. Sorry, I should have told you that.”

Katie nodded distractedly. Beneath the swoop of her ponytail, Lance saw a small, vicious red mark on her neck It looked almost like a bite. His hands clenched imperceptibly as he wondered what—or rather, who—it was from.

It was only after he tried to open the refrigerator that Lance remembered he’d set it on out-put restriction mode.

“Per the instruction of Muscle Regime 2118, your daily nutritional intake has been capped. Calorie count will reset after the conclusion of REM cycle,” the fridge’s automated voice informed him.

“Muscle regime,” Katie repeated, her eyes dancing. She was clearly struggling not to laugh. “I should get one of those.”

“Guest override,” Lance mumbled, the blood rising to his face. What was  _ wrong  _ with him? Maybe he’d had more to drink than he realized. Or maybe he was still experiencing the aftershocks of wrecking that convertible. “Can you put your hand on the fridge, to prove you’re here?”

Katie placed her palm to the refrigerator door, and he pulled the door open to grab takeout containers at random. Katie took a box of garlic knots from his hand and tore into one. “Mmm,” she exclaimed through a mouthful of the spiced fried crust. She had dribbled garlic sauce on her mouth but was eating too ravenously to notice. 

She was nothing like the other girls Lance knew.

“Oh my god! Are those Gummy Buddies?” Katie burst out, looking over his shoulder at the box. “Do they actually move when you bite off their heads, like they do in the adverts?”

“You’ve never had a Gummy Buddy? He and Keith used to eat them all the time when they were kids. It was fun in a mindless, hilarious way; biting off half a gummy and watching the other half squirm. Even more fun when you were high. 

“No.” Katie took an abrupt step forward, her eyes lit up with eagerness. She really was pretty. Not the way Romelle was, all symmetrical and flawless, or flashy and sultry like Allura. No, she was different. He would have called it softer, except he sensed a steely determination underlying Katie’s every move. 

“Come on. Try one.” He handed her the bag, wondering why he was doing this, what he really thought was going to happen.

Katie selected a gummy and popped it whole into her mouth. She frowned in disappointment when nothing happened. 

Lance barely held back a laugh. “You didn’t do it right. You have to bite off the head, or the legs. You can’t just eat it all at once.” 

Katie narrowed her eyes as if she wasn’t quite sure whether to believe him. Then she took a cherry-red gummy and bit off the bottom half, revealing her row of small white teeth. The RFID chip in the remaining top part of the gummy abruptly let out a high-pitched scream. 

“Crap!” Katie exclaimed, dropping the gummy on the floor. It kept twitching near her feet. She sidled backward, watching the gummy with wide, terrified eyes, as if it were an animal that might dart out and bite her ankles. 

Lance burst out laughing. It was all too much: the gummy thrashing about on the floor; the fact that he was here with the daughter of his family’s former maid, a girl he didn’t know and didn’t understand. He felt oddly proud to have surprised Katie. For some reason, he suspected she wasn’t surprised that often. 

“Here, try again,” he suggested, holding out the bag of Gummy Buddies. “If you bite off the head, they don’t scream, just move around.”

Katie crossed her arms and muttered something about being able to program a better Gummy Buddy. Lance found himself watching her, his eyes drawn to the tiny stitches along the neckline of her shirt. They were fraying a little at the back. That red mark on her neck had grown even brighter with her flush of excitement. 

“I’m good, thanks,” she said, and Lance heard the finality in her tone. She was about to leave. He realized to his surprise that he didn’t want her to.

Before he could think twice, he closed the distance between them and lowered his mouth to hers. 

The kiss was hot and sweet and tasted of lightning. It was as disorientating as the car crash out on long island, as if all Lance’s senses had been set on fire at once. He pulled Katie closer, bending her backward—

Dimly he realized that her hands were on his chest and she was shoving him away. 

He stumbled back. His pulse beat erratically under the surface of his skin. 

Katie took a shaky, careful breath. Then she raised her arm and slapped Lance across the face. 

“I’m sorry.” Lance suddenly felt like the worst kind of ass. He’d thought—He’d been so certain that there was something between them—

“I clearly misread the situation,” he added, stumbling over his words in confusion. 

Katies expression was closed off. “I—um, I should get going.” 

At first Lance couldn’t think how to react, from the lateness and the bourbon and the swirling aftermath of that kiss. But before she reached the door, he;d realized that he had to say something, anything that would end the night on a better note than this. 

“Hey Holt. Catch.”

He tossed the bag of Gummy Buddies toward her. She startled but caught them in both hands. A sugary peace offering. 

“Thanks,” she mumbled as the door shut behind her. 

Lance stood there awhile after she left, leaning back against the refrigerator. It’s cool surface felt pleasant on his overheated skin. What should he way to Katie Holt when le saw her next?

Because he  _ would  _ see her, even if he wasn’t yet sure when.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are always welcome!


	3. going into a dudes room should not be this hard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> katie and lance talk. we meet veronica

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEYO!   
i low key forgot about this fic (sorry y'all) but im back in business! hope you enjoy!

Here goes nothing, Katie thought, and stepped up to Lance Mcclain’s door for the second time in three days. Hard to believe that after everything that happened, she was back again—and by her own design no less. 

The previous morning, when her communals hangover had finally dissipated and her anger cooled a bit, Katie had opened her tablet to find herself 250 nanogac richer. She wondered if the extra fifty was a standard Lance Mcclain tip, or an attempt to make up for his late-night behavior.

She’d wavered between paying rent and the bank—the bank, she decided, seeing how impossibly high that debt had grown. Besides, she could always fend off their landlord when it came down to it. He tended to cut Katie and Matt a little slack because he’d known their mom. 

_ Hey Sal,  _ Katie had written, sending him a quick message.  _ Just wanted to let you know that his month’s rent will be coming to you a few weeks from now.  _ They were behind on last month’s rent too, Katie had remembered with a sudden twinge of discomfort, but it was too late; she’d already sent in the bank deposit.  _ I’m really sorry. It won’t happen again,  _ she went on, hoping he was in a good mood today. Sal seemed to take notices from her better than from her brother, so she crossed her fingers. 

Then, swallowing her pride, she had called Lance. 

He’d answered on the fifth ring. She jumped in, trying to sound normal. “Hey, It’s Katie, Holt,” she added clumsily, after a moment of silence. 

“Katie. How… unexpected to hear from you.” Lance had sounded amused. Katie tried not to, but all she could picture was the bright red mark on his face after she’d slapped it. 

“About last night.” She was sitting at the kitchen table, tracing a crinkled advert for Bob’s Galactic Cereal, the instapaper so old and cheap that the cartoon aliens no longer danced. Only their eyes flicked creepily back and forth, their spaceships barely twitching. Katie took a deep breath and tried again. “I want to apologize. I was tired and I overreacted. I’m sorry.”

“Words are cheap,” Lance answered. “If you really are sorry, why don’t you show me?” 

Katie slammed her hands on the table. “You seriously think, after—” 

“Get your mind out of the gutter Holt,” Lance said, drawing out her name in that way of his. “I was going to ask if you would  _ clean _ again. I don’t know if you’ve met my sister, Veronica, but she’s here this week, and she’s kind of a mess.” 

“Sure, I could do that. Same rate?” Katie said carefully. It was what she;d been about to suggest; after seeing that cash in her account this morning, she;d realized she should squeeze as much money out of Lance as she could. Yet somehow it seemed like the upper hand had shifted back to him. 

“Sure. I’ll have the uniform sent over. Wearing it is optional of course.” Lance chuckled. Katie had rolled her eyes and started to reply, but he’d already hung up. 

So now it was Monday morning, and here she stood, waiting for Lance Mcclain to comm her in. She tugged self-consciously at the shapeless black dress and white apron the drone had delivered last night. She’d already called in sick to Iverson, her boss at the monorail stop; she even ad official “proof”, since she and Matt had reprogrammed their mediwand long ago to log a false positive for the sliperies. She wasn't sure how long she could hold down her real job without showing up, but she couldn’t afford not to try. 

As the door clicked open, Katie stepped inside—and paused for a moment, speechless. On Saturday these rooms had been overheated and crowded, full of people and noise and light. Now they felt vast, and empty. Katie’s eyes traveled to the greenhouse with its cobblestone flooring and insect-like heat lamps, to the cavernous high-tech kitchen that she was sure Hunk would love, to the two-story living room with its curving glass staircase. 

“Care to tell me why you’re here?” 

Katie jumped, whirling around, and almost collided with a dark-haired stranger wearing a navy pant suit and a smirk. “Where’s Lance?” she said without thinking, and instantly regretted it. 

“Who knows?” The woman flashed a grin.”I’m Lance’s sister Veronica.” Of course, Katie thought; they looked alike, though Veronica was almost five years older. 

“Katie Holt. Sorry to bother you,” she said quickly. “I’ll get to work.” 

“Work?”

“Lance asked me to come clean for you guys.” She shifted her weight feeling uncomfortable. 

“Ah,” Veronica said quietly, her eyes travelling up and down her body. “Well I’m glad Lance is looking to change. This place is filthy.” She turned to go before catching Katie’s eyes one last time. “If he gives you any trouble, let me know okay?” 

Katie nodded, went to the closet of cleaning supplies and gathered the bucket of spray cleansers and disposable scrub-balls. But when she went back out into the living room, Veronica was gone, and the room seemed considerably more empty. She gritted her teeth and started up the stairs. 

*

Later that afternoon, she stood outside the door to Lance’s bedroom, steeling herself to go. 

_ It’s not that weird,  _ she told herself.  _ He’s just a guy. Just like Matt.  _ But even though she’d been in her brothers “room” plenty of times, walking into the bedroom of a stranger somehow felt weird. It was fat too intimate. 

She started with the bed, changing the sheets and fluffing the pillows, then sprayed the windows and UV-cleaned the carpets/ Finally, as she was running a duster over the top of Lance’s heavy wooden dresser, she hesitated, overwhelmed by a powerful curiosity. Who  _ was  _ Lance Mcclain, anyways?” 

Impulsively, she opened the top drawer and glanced through its contents, an assortment of very masculine things. Some of them she didn’t even recognize. She pushed aside cuff links, a small bottle of cologne, a leather billfold embossed with CVM—Lance’s fathers initials, she guessed. Katie was a little impressed to find it full of illegal old paper greenbacks, which still circulated widely through the black market since, unlike nanogac, the were untraceable. Maybe they were just heirlooms. But if Lance actually paid people in this, he was ballsier than she had realized. 

In the bottom drawer she found something that gave her pause. Below bottles of skin care products was an antique metal box filled entirely with custom-made Quintessence drugs. Quints, everyone called them. Katie had never seen so many in one place. But she lifted up the lid of the box and there they all were, her personal treasure trove of tiny blue envelopes, each of them marked with the signature yellow prescription label and containing one pill. 

Quints were exorbitantly expensive, worth more than Katie made in weeks at her monorail job, precisely because they were  _ legal _ drugs: prescribed by a doctor after countless brain scans and psych evaluations. They were tailor-made for wealthy clients to “relieve stress and calm anxieties.” Katie glanced at the date on the original prescription. Just as she guessed—right after his parents passed. 

She leaned back on her heels, thinking about how strange the world was, that both she and Lance had lost their parents. Yet while she was working for an hourly wage just to keep her family together, with barely any time to properly grieve her mom and dad; Lance had been given custom-made drugs to help with his grief. 

It wasn’t fair, Katie thought bitterly, then felt a little ashamed of herself for the thought. Lance had lost his parents. She of all people shouldn’t judge what he did to handle it. 

Shutting the drawer with a sigh, Katie gave one last glance around the room before heading downstairs. She pushed open the front door only to bump into Lance on the steps. He was still taller than her, even with her standing one level higher. 

“Oh. Um, hi,” she said clumsily. She didn’t know what to say to him. She’d never before had to face someone she’d recently slapped. 

“Heading home?” Lance was wearing workout clothes, his dark olive skin was covered in a thin layer of swear, as if he’d come straight from the gym. Or maybe he’d been running; there was dirt caked around his shoes, leaving prints on the white limestone step. 

“It’s four o’clock.” Katie crossed her arms over her chest feeling suddenly self-conscious of the uniform, which was tight across the boobs.

“No, of course, I didn’t mean… “

“Thanks for the Gummy Buddies, by the way. My brother and I enjoyed them.” Katie wasn’t sure why she’d said that. She wasn’t getting paid to stand here and make conversations. She moved down a step, so she was on the same level as Lance and started walking past him. 

“Matt, right?” Lance asked, shocking Katie into stillness. She couldn’t believe Lance remembered Matt’s name. 

“Yeah. He’s four years older,” Katie said quietly. 

Lance nodded. “That’s great, that you two have each other.” Katie thought of Lance and Veronica. She wondered how close they were. 

“Sorry,” Lance said after a minute, “I didn’t mean to keep you. You’re obviously headed somewhere.” 

“To meet—to meet Matt, actually,” Katie said, stumbling over her words a little. She’d been about to say “my boyfriend” and then some instinct had stopped her, though she didn’t know why.

“Tell him there are more Gummy Buddies where those came from—if he promises not to torture them the way you did.”

Katie couldn’t help but smile at that. “See you tomorrow,” she started to say, but he’d shut the door quietly behind him. 

_ Whatever,  _ Katie told herself as she started down the F lift; Lance Mcclain was impossible to understand and there was no use trying. 

When she reached Park and Central, the intersection at the exact center of the Castle, Katie stepped through the metal double door marked LIFT MAINTENANCE ONLY. 

She had to wait only a few minutes before James appeared from the lifties’ locker room in jeans and a think black shirt he wore under his swing suit. His hair was still damp with sweat from the ecramold helmet. “Hey babe. Didn’t know you were coming today.”

Katie leaned into that hug. He smelled comfortably familiar, like metal and sweat. “I wanted to see you.” 

“What’s with the costume?” James laughed. 

“Oh, right.” Katie glanced down at the maids uniform she’d half forgotten she was wearing. “I worked for Lance Mcclain today. You know, my mom’s old job. And—”

“Seriously?” His tone sharpened, all his good humor gone. James hated the highliers, with a fury that sometimes shocked even Katie. “Why the hell would you work for that asshole?”

“It pays more than the monorail stop. And I called in sick there. It’s just temporary,” she said impatiently. 

“Oh, I get it. Well, as long as you don’t quit your real job.” James put an arm around her waist. “New gig, this calls for a celebration. Wanna go to Verdaderos?” It was their favorite divey Cuban place, with spicy street corn and deep-fried queso.

“Absolutely.” Katie followed him out into the thoroughfare, where the lights had dimmed to evening setting. 

Just then, a message came through on her tablet; Sal’s response to her earlier message. 

_ Katie: I’ve been so hard to be generous with you and your brother, but I can’t keep making exceptions for you,  _ it read.  _ You’re two months behind on rent. If you don’t pay by the end of the week, you’re evicted.  _

Katie felt nauseated. She immediately tried to call but he didn’t pick up. 

“Everything okay?” James was watching her. 

Katie didn’t answer. She felt like the world was spinning. This was her fault—why had she paid the bank earlier instead of the rent? She’s been so sure of herself, of her ability to squeeze another month’s grace period out of Sal; she’d done it plenty of times before. But now everything was crashing down, and she didn’t know how to fix it. She knew she should message Matt, tell him what was going on, but it was too late, and he needed his sleep. He’d already done so much for them. 

_ You’ll get your money by Friday,  _ she typed back, her hands shaking, though she had no idea how she would manage it. Maybe she could borrow some from James, except his family needed every penny too. Or maybe Lance could give her an advance.

_ Lance.  _ Her mind flashed to what she’d found in his bottom drawer, earlier that afternoon. There was her answer. 

“It’ll be okay,” she told James, hating what she was considering. 

But more than that, Katie hated that she didn’t really have a choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> questions/comments/suggestions are always welcome!

**Author's Note:**

> Comments/suggestions/theories are always welcome!


End file.
